Marginal gains in food security, despite recent rain

Despite recent rain in drought-threatened areas of Tanzania, there was marginal improvement in food security as the rainfall was insufficient to support substantial cereal production, the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) has reported. Cereal prices continued to escalate in rural and urban markets, limiting access to staple food for poor households, FEWS NET reported in its February report, released on Tuesday. However, it said: "If the ongoing seasonal (msimu) rains continue as expected, food security conditions in most unimodal rainfall areas will improve starting in April/May, when farmers will start consuming green crops." The recent rain improved milk yields and vegetable production, FEWS NET said. FEWS NET reported that ongoing food-for-farming distributions by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) as well as additional subsidised maize sales by the government of Tanzania were expected to improve local supplies. "Despite the likelihood for improvements in some areas, continued vigilance is necessary in bimodal rainfall areas, especially, where the vuli rains failed," FEWS NET said. It added that staple food prices were likely to continue rising over the next three to six months. "Commercial imports may help to moderate price increases, but will not lower them substantially because prices in several of the exporting countries are already high and not likely to fall soon," FEWS NET reported. It said that to complement the government's efforts, the donor community should provide an additional 18,000 mt of grain to fill the gap between the amount appealed for by the government and the WFP in August-September 2003 and the quantity they have so far contributed. [ The FEWS NET report is available online at: www.fews.net ]